Treatment Day 2: Suboxone Therapy

April 26, 2011

Three a day, dissolved under the tongue.

I have been doing Suboxone therapy for an opiate addiction for about a month now. I have detoxed from alcohol and stopped taking all other drugs, but Suboxone is an opiate in its own right, and I ultimately intend to stop taking that as well. The plan is to do that gradually. I will diminish my dose by two milligrams every second day. Two milligrams is the equivalent of 1/4th of a strip. This won’t be a pleasant part of this experience, because there will be withdrawal symptoms. Mitigated symptoms, but symptoms nonetheless.

Sure beats heroin.

I have a background in marketing and advertising, so lets all bask in the glow of a clean and effective package design. Suboxone has an extremely well-designed, coordinated and integrated marketing campaign. The materials the doctors give out in addition to consistent branding aesthetics in the website and other marketing materials scream EXPENSIVE. And I’m here to tell you, that price is passed along to me, the erstwhile drug-addled consumer.

And you would have to be on drugs to pay these prices in the first place! These things are seven dollars apiece. At three a day, that costs me $21 a day, $147 a week. That is outrageous. Considering that many Suboxone MD’s charge a monthly subscription fee – sometimes as high as $500 a month – I am slightly cynical about the whole thing.

But the fact of the matter is, drugs are a lot more expensive. My opiate habit ran about $120 a say. THAT is outrageous. Am I better off with the Suboxone? Yes. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think there isn’t maybe just a little bit of exploitation of a captive market going on here. That money all goes to the manufacturer, too. I can tell you that the Notdisneyworld Sober Ranch isn’t making a penny off of my Suboxone.